Chinese emperor was poisoned with arsenic

One of the great mysteries surrounding the collapse of the Chinese empire may have been solved by scientific tests suggesting the last emperor but one was poisoned with arsenic.

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

4:08PM GMT 03 Nov 2008

Analysis of hair and other fragments taken from the tomb of the Guangxu emperor, who died 100 years ago this month, showed high levels of the chemical.

The young Guangxu emperor attempted to change China and its autocratic imperial system.

The findings are seen as proving suspicions that the emperor was murdered, and the implications will be eagerly discussed, not just by historians. The traditional secrecy of Chinese rulers through the centuries makes the fate of China's last dynastic rulers important for understanding modern-day Communist Party politics.

The Guangxu emperor, like all Chinese rulers, was known by a formal title given to his reign since commoners were not allowed to speak his name. He was a sick and depressed youth, ascending the throne as an infant and overshadowed all his life by conniving princes and his powerful aunt, the dowager empress.

But in 1898 he began an impressive attempt to change China and its autocratic imperial system for ever, taking as advisers reformist thinkers who argued for a constitutional monarchy.

This brief flowering lasted 100 days before his advisers were arrested and beheaded, and he himself imprisoned on an island in the Forbidden City gardens.

Rumours that he was poisoned circulated not long after his death. The dowager empress, who was on her death-bed and "ascended the dragon" the very next day, was said to have wanted to control the succession.

Others pointed the finger of blame at a general, Yuan Shikai, afraid the emperor was plotting revenge for the death of his advisers.

Whichever was true, the three-year-old last emperor was in no position to prevent the collapse of the Qing, China's final ruling dynasty, and its replacement by a republic in 1912.

The new study was backed by the administration of the Western Qing Tombs, where he is buried, the China Institute of Atomic Energy, the police forensic science unit, and state television.

The scientists were forbidden from reopening the tomb, but were able to use a combination of X-ray technology and samples removed when it was opened in the past.

They concluded the emperor had consumed a quantity of arsenic three times a potentially fatal dose.

Levels were much higher nearer the root than the tips of the hair, showing the poisoning was sudden, rather than a slow build-up.

"Confirmation of Guangxu's death is a successful attempt to solve historical problems through modern science and technology," said Wang Ke, one of the scientists involved.

The scientists noted that the findings do not affect the sensitive question of who was responsible.

The popular view of the dowager empress as a tyrannical ogre whose cruel and eccentric rule fatally weakened China and allowed it to fall under the influence of western powers is a key part of Communist Party propaganda.

The alternative view, that she was manipulated by a secretive, ultra-conservative and xenophobic clique who would stop at nothing to prevent liberal reform, is rarely discussed.

Views of the dowager empress and her relationship with her nephew even divide surviving members of the royal family, some of whom believe she has been traduced by history.

But Jin Yuzhang, a nephew of the last emperor, stands by the traditional account. "I have not yet studied these findings," Mr Jin, who has renounced his claim to the throne, told The Daily Telegraph.

"I think the downfall of the Qing dynasty was a historical inevitability. But the dowager empress cannot escape responsibility for some of these events.